Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
In early February, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in northern Alberta started fielding calls from community members after the provincial regulator revealed toxic wastewater had been leaking for months from a tailings pond at Imperial Oil's Kearl oil sands mine. Many in the community hunt and fish downstream of Canada's huge bitumen mines, and wanted to know if the game meat in their freezers was safe to eat.
